Project Horseshoe: What's Confirmed at Titusville's Airport

A previously unnamed aerospace company that airport officials call 'Project Horseshoe' is evaluating space at Space Coast Innovation Park, the industrial park under development at Space Coast Regional Airport (TIX) in Titusville. That comes from the Titusville-Cocoa Airport Authority's own August 20, 2026 director's report to its board, not from the company itself. The company's identity is still not public.

What the Airport Authority Confirms

Per the report from Kevin Daugherty, the authority's director of airports, Project Horseshoe is described as 'a significant aerospace opportunity being evaluated for Space Coast Innovation Park Phases 1 and 2.' The project remains in the site-selection process. Staff describes the project team as still working through infrastructure, access, permitting, workforce, and funding questions. No lease had been signed as of that August 20 report.

What Florida Today Reported

Florida Today broke the story on September 2. The company is still not named. Citing a Space Florida agenda memo, the paper reported the company is weighing whether to expand across up to 1.1 million square feet of future floor space and is seeking up to $230 million in financing, about $30 million for equipment and tooling plus up to $200 million in bonds. At the airport authority's August 20 board meeting, Daugherty said, "It's still all preliminary. They're doing lease negotiations right now." Neither figure appears in the airport authority's own public paperwork. Relativity Space's reported $565 million Brevard expansion followed a similar pattern: reported figures, months before anything showed up in a signed, public record.

The September 16 Groundbreaking, and What It Covers

Construction is already underway on the west side of TIX: the Challenger Avenue Extension and Space Coast Innovation Park's Phase 1 improvements, meaning roadway, stormwater, utility, and other common-use infrastructure. An official groundbreaking ceremony for that work is scheduled for September 16 at 11:30 a.m., with invitations distributed by the park's developers, per the airport authority's report.

That ceremony is for the park's shared infrastructure. It is not confirmation that Project Horseshoe has signed anything. The airport authority's own report keeps the two items separate: infrastructure construction underway in one paragraph, Project Horseshoe still in site selection in another.

Space Coast Innovation Park's Full Scope

Space Coast Innovation Park is a joint project between Hines and Titusville-based Key Group, who signed their ground lease with the airport authority in March 2022, according to Key Group's letter in the airport authority's August 2026 board packet. The full park covers 450 acres along Grissom Parkway and Perimeter Road, inside TIX's federally licensed Exploration Spaceport boundary, per Key Group's own project page. Planned buildout is 3 million square feet across three phases: about 639,000 square feet on 50 acres in Phase 1 (three buildings), about 466,000 square feet on 50 acres in Phase 2 (two buildings), and a 350-acre Phase 3 that Key Group has described only as mixed-use.

The airport authority's own capital projects budget lists $15 million in state grant funding, through Space Florida and the Florida Department of Transportation's Spaceport Improvement Program, for Space Coast Innovation Park's Phase 1 site development. Letters from Hines and Key Group in the same board packet credit that grant, alongside an equity commitment from Hines and its partners, with helping close the debt needed to start Phase 1 construction. Per the authority's own report, its focus for the next fiscal year is advancing lease negotiations for Phases 2 and 3.

Other Aerospace Activity at the Same Airport

The same August 20 report lists other activity at TIX. The authority signed a temporary space use agreement with Blue Origin for about nine acres on the airport's west side, for off-site contractor staging, running through June 30, 2027 at $16,879.50 a month. Staff also reported talks with an Orlando-based aerospace company about relocating manufacturing to airport land near TICO Road and Columbia Boulevard, and with Arcade Aviation about a proposed 20,000-square-foot hangar for CRJ maintenance work. None of the activity listed above involves Project Horseshoe directly.

RCRE Take

Florida Today's reported footprint, up to 1.1 million square feet, lines up closely with the combined size of Space Coast Innovation Park's Phase 1 and Phase 2: about 1.105 million square feet together, matching the airport authority's own description of Project Horseshoe as evaluated for Phases 1 and 2. If that holds, this would be one of the larger single industrial users to land in Brevard County in years. Nothing in the airport authority's public record confirms a signed deal, and as of August 20 the project was still described as being in site selection.

Space Coast Innovation Park has a $15 million state grant and equity from Hines behind it, and it is moving through its own phases whether or not Project Horseshoe lands there. Brevard's industrial vacancy has been running tight, and a 3 million square foot park built out phase by phase is part of how that supply eventually grows. Landlords and tenants competing for large industrial blocks in the Titusville corridor have not seen a named company or a signed lease yet.

Did Space Coast Innovation Park just break ground?

No. Key Group, the park's development partner, dates Phase 1's original groundbreaking to the first quarter of 2024, with construction running about a year. The September 16 ceremony covers a later piece of infrastructure work, not a first groundbreaking.

Is more infrastructure funding coming for the site?

The airport authority has submitted a separate funding request to Space Florida for a Challenger Avenue Rehabilitation project, covering road reconstruction, drainage improvements, and moving overhead power lines underground. Space Florida will weigh that request as part of its State Fiscal Year 2028 Call for Projects, per the authority's August 20 report.

Sources

• Titusville-Cocoa Airport Authority, Director of Airports Memorandum to the Board of Directors, August 20, 2026, board meeting agenda packet (flyspacecoast.org)

• Florida Today, "Mystery space company eyes possible $230M project at Titusville airport," September 2, 2026

• Hometown News Brevard (Chris Bonanno), "Space Coast Innovation Park planned for Titusville," republished at consultkey.com, December 27, 2023

• Image credit: Key Group company site photo of a Space Coast Innovation Park building, consultkey.com

• Image: Space Coast Innovation Park rendering, Key Group

Written by Cassandra Hartford, founder and CEO of Reach Commercial Real Estate. She has worked in Brevard County commercial real estate for 18 years, representing buyers, sellers, landlords, and tenants across Florida's Space Coast.